Treatment Episode Data Set - Admissions (TEDS-A) Series

The Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS) is a national census data system of annual admissions to substance abuse treatment facilities. State laws require certain substance abuse treatment programs to report all of their admissions and discharges to the State. In all States, treatment programs receiving any public funds are required to provide the data on both publicly and privately funded clients. In some States, programs that do not receive public funds are required to provide data as well. TEDS collects this data from the States on all admissions and discharges aged 12 or older.

TEDS is one component of the Behavioral Health Services Information System (BHSIS), maintained by the Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality (CBHSQ), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). TEDS records represent admissions rather than individuals, as a person may be admitted to treatment more than once. Information on treatment admissions is routinely collected by State administrative systems and then submitted to SAMHSA in a standard format.

A sister data system, called the Treatment Episode Data Set -- Discharges (TEDS-D), collects data on discharges from substance abuse treatment facilities. The first year of TEDS-A data is 1992, while the first year of TEDS-D is 2006.

TEDS includes data from facilities that are licensed or certified by the state substance abuse agencies to provide substance abuse treatment, or that are administratively tracked for other reasons, and that are required by the states to provide TEDS client-level data. Within each state, treatment providers that receive any state agency funding, including the federal Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment (SAPT) Block Grant monies, are expected to provide TEDS data for all clients admitted to treatment, regardless of the source of funding for individual clients. While compromising a significant proportion of all admissions to substance abuse treatment, TEDS does not include all such admissions. The scope of admissions included in TEDS is affected by differences in state reporting practices, varying definitions of treatment admission, availability of public funds, and public funding constraints.

TEDS variables that are required to be reported are called the "Minimum Data Set (MDS)", while those that are optional are called the "Supplemental Data Set (SuDS)". Additional variables, such as calculated age and census region, are added to the data. TEDS provides information on service setting, number of prior treatments, primary source of referral, employment status, whether methadone was prescribed in treatment, presence of psychiatric problems, living arrangements, health insurance, substance(s) abused, route of administration, age at first use, pregnancy and veteran status, and demographic variables.

In addition to providing the data in various data formats, the SAMHSA data website also features publications about TEDS.